"Weed Wars" clinic (Harborside) under RICO filing by CA. USDA

President Obama Avoids Medical Marijuana, War On Drugs Questions In Reddit AMA
1 23 252 President Obama brought reddit to its knees when he agreed to do an AMA (ask-me-anything) interview on the site. Unfortunately “ask me anything” is not the same as “I’ll answer anything.”


I wasn’t surprised to learn that President Obama was doing a reddit AMA (Ask-Me-Anything.)

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com
The format is basically a digital townhall style interview with anonymous people online, and lots of celebrities have shown up at one time or another, including comedians Louis CK and Stephen Colbert, as well as various other famous types (and many not-famous types.)

The President has shown up on The Daily Show, appeared in Google Hangout townhalls, and made enormous use of social media and the internet in his campaigns. We’re well into the heady days of campaign season at this point so it’s only natural to see the president reach out to the internet this way.

This is one of those moments where my past beat – covering the prisons and the War on Drugs – and my current beat, covering technology, collide head-on.

In any case, it’s no more surprising that Obama avoided answering questions about medical marijuana, the role that the federal government plays in enforcing drug laws, or the broader conundrum of the War on Drugs.

President Obama has never really given off the impression that he takes these issues seriously.

Pressed on the matter in the past, the president has said it was a “legitimate topic for debate” but maintained his position against legalization.

While his view that the War on Drugs is fundamentally a question of public health is commendable, the Obama administration’s policies have not reflected this.

I’m not a libertarian, but watching Obama’s responses over the years to the question of marijuana legalization has resulted in a long string of disappointments. Compare this to Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, or even members of the Democratic party who have come out against the War on Drugs

Around the 2:40 mark in the below video, Obama makes it pretty clear that the issue is a joke, and that the “online audience” is as well. Maybe his views have changed now that he’s showing up on the “Front Page” of the internet.I disagree with lots of things Ron Paul believes in, but on this issue I find his stance a welcome breath of fresh air. I especially like his response to Stephen Baldwin.

Personally, I think we need an AMA with Herman Cain. I know he’s irrelevant now, and pretty much always was, but his work with Colbert was just adorable. Let’s ask him obscure questions about the nitty-gritty of foreign policy and just watch what happens.

can't find video)
 
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Lawmakers In 5 States Tell Feds To Back Off Medical Marijuana Posted: 04/ 2/2012 4:26 pm


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...es-tell-feds-medical-marijuana_n_1397811.html
WASHINGTON -- Elected lawmakers in five states have a message for the federal government: Don't interfere with state medical marijuana laws.

In an open letter to the federal government, lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle called on the government to stop using scarce law enforcement resources on taking pot away from medical marijuana patients.

"States with medical marijuana laws have chosen to embrace an approach that is based on science, reason, and compassion. We are lawmakers from these states," the lawmakers explained in their letter.

"Our state medical marijuana laws differ from one another in their details, such as which patients qualify for medical use; how much marijuana patients may possess; whether patients and caregivers may grow marijuana; and whether regulated entities may grow and sell marijuana to patients. Each of our laws, however, is motivated by a desire to protect seriously ill patients from criminal penalties under state law."

The letter -- signed by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-Calif.), Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Wash.), Rep. Antonio Maestas (D-N.M.), Sen. Cisco McSorley (D-N.M.), Assemblyman Chris Norby (R-Calif.), Rep. Deborah Sanderson (R-Maine) and Sen. Pat Steadman (D-Colo.) -- comes directly on the heels of a federal raid in the heart of California's pot legalization movement: medical marijuana training school Oaksterdam University in downtown Oakland, where U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials on Monday blocked off doors with yellow tape and carried off trash bags full of unknown substances to a nearby van. An IRS spokeswoman could not comment on the raid except to say the agents had a federal search warrant.

The lawmakers called on President Obama to live up to his campaign promise to leave the regulation of medical marijuana to the states, adding raids would only "force patients underground" into the illegal drug market.

The president as a candidate promised to maintain a hands-off approach toward pot clinics that adhere to state law. At a 2007 town hall meeting in Manchester, N.H., Obama said raiding patients who use marijuana for medicinal purposes "makes no sense." At another town hall in Nashua, N.H., he said the Justice Department's prosecution of medical marijuana users was "not a good use of our resources." Yet the number of Justice Department raids on marijuana dispensaries has continued to rise.

Read the full letter here:

Over the last two decades, 16 states and the District of Columbia have chosen to depart from federal policy and chart their own course on the issue of medical marijuana, as states are entitled to do under our federalist system of government. These states have rejected the fallacy long promoted by the federal government -- that marijuana has absolutely no accepted medical use and that seriously ill people must choose between ignoring their doctors' medical advice or risking arrest and prosecution. They have stopped using their scarce law enforcement resources to punish patients and those who care for them and have instead spent considerable resources and time crafting programs that will provide patients with safe and regulated access to medical marijuana.
States with medical marijuana laws have chosen to embrace an approach that is based on science, reason, and compassion. We are lawmakers from these states.

Our state medical marijuana laws differ from one another in their details, such as which patients qualify for medical use; how much marijuana patients may possess; whether patients and caregivers may grow marijuana; and whether regulated entities may grow and sell marijuana to patients. Each of our laws, however, is motivated by a desire to protect seriously ill patients from criminal penalties under state law; to provide a safe and reliable source of medical marijuana; and to balance and protect the needs of local communities and other residents in the state. The laws were drafted with considered thoughtfulness and care, and are thoroughly consistent with the American tradition of using the states as laboratories for public policy innovation and experimentation.

Unfortunately, these laws face a mounting level of federal hostility and confusing mixed messages from the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice, and the various United States Attorneys. In 2008, then candidate Obama stated that as President, he would not use the federal government to circumvent state laws on the issue of medical marijuana. This promise was followed up in 2009 by President Obama with a Department of Justice memo from former Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden stating that federal resources should not generally be focused "on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana." This provided welcome guidance for state legislators and administrators and encouraged us to move forward with drafting and passing responsible regulatory legislation.

Nonetheless, the United States Attorneys in several states with medical marijuana laws have chosen a different course. They have explicitly threatened that federal investigative and prosecutorial resources "will continue to be directed" towards the manufacture and distribution of medical marijuana, even if such activities are permitted under state law. These threats have generally been timed to influence pending legislation or encourage the abandonment of state and local regulatory programs. They contradict President Obama's campaign promise and policy his first year in office and serve to push medical marijuana activity back into the illicit market.

Most disturbing is that a few United States Attorneys warn that state employees who implement the laws and regulations of our states are not immune from criminal prosecution under the federal Controlled Substances Act. They do so notwithstanding the fact that no provision exists within the Controlled Substances Act that makes it a crime for a state employee to enforce regulations that help a state define conduct that is legal under its own state laws.

Hundreds of state and municipal employees are currently involved in the licensing and regulation of medical marijuana producers and providers in New Mexico, Colorado, Maine, and California, and have been for years. The federal government has never threatened, much less prosecuted, any of these employees. Indeed, the federal government has not, to our knowledge, prosecuted state employees for performing their ministerial duties under state law in modern history. It defies logic and precedent that the federal government would start prosecuting state employees now.

Recognizing the lack of any real harm to state employees, a number of states have moved forward. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie drew on his own experience as a former United States Attorney in deciding that New Jersey state workers were not realistically at risk of federal prosecution in his decision to move forward implementing New Jersey’s medical marijuana program. Rhode Island, Vermont, Arizona, and the District of Columbia are also in the process of implementing their state laws.

Nonetheless, the suggestion that state employees are at risk is have a destructive and chilling impact. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire vetoed legislation to regulate medical marijuana in her state and Delaware Governor Jack Markell suspended implementation of his state's regulatory program after receiving warnings from the United States Attorneys in their states about state employees. Additionally, a number of localities in California ended or suspended regulatory programs after receiving similar threats to their workers.

We, the undersigned state legislators, call on state and local officials to not be intimidated by these empty federal threats. Our state medical marijuana programs should be implemented and move forward. Our work, and the will of our voters, should see the light of day.

We call on the federal government not to interfere with our ability to control and regulate how medical marijuana is grown and distributed. Let us seek clarity rather than chaos. Don’t force patients underground, to fuel the illegal drug market.

And finally, we call on President Obama to recommit to the principles and policy on which he campaigned and asserted his first year in office. Please respect our state laws. And don't use our employees as pawns in your zealous and misguided war on medical marijuana.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-CA)

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-WA)

Representative Antonio Maestas (D-NM)

Senator Cisco McSorley (D-NM)

Assemblymember Chris Norby (R-CA)

Representative Deborah Sanderson (R-ME)

Senator Pat Steadman (D-CO)
 
Nevada medical marijuana law "absurd"

In a state where medical marijuana use is legal but buying it is not, two Henderson men are facing the possibility of federal prison time and a hefty fine after pleading guilty to conspiring to grow and sell marijuana through a business they called Organic Releaf.

Brothers Raymond Medlin, 31, and Eric Medlin, 28, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana. U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said they could face up to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine at sentencing Nov. 29.

"Storefront marijuana dispensaries are not recognized under Nevada law," Bogden said in a statement, "and it is illegal to sell 'medical marijuana' in Nevada."


The two men admitted owning and operating a marijuana dispensary in Las Vegas that was raided by federal agents in September 2010. Bogden said authorities seized 181 pot plants and dried marijuana in containers with labels including "White Rhino," ''Purple Wreck" and "Sour Diesel."

Neither man was arrested at that time. But their mother, Caroline Dellevalle, and a co-defendant, Chad Uhl, pladed guilty in 2011 to similar conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana charges. Each was sentenced to time served and five years' supervised release.

Police found 50 pot plants and growing equipment during a March 29 raid at an apparent marijuana growing operation at a business suite in Henderson, Bogden said. Raymond Medlin and Eric Medlin were seen at times at the office, and neither had a valid medical marijuana card or pending application.

Thousands of registered medical marijuana users in the state have no legal way to obtain the drug. State law enacted in 2001 allows each person with a state card to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana and grow as many as three mature and four immature plants.

Critics say not every patient can grow their own pot, and the disparity between state law allowing the use of medical marijuana and state law prohibiting the production and sale of marijuana has frustrated judges.

A state court judge in Las Vegas, who has since retired, dismissed drug trafficking charges earlier this year against two men who operated a storefront pot dispensary. Judge Donald Mosley called it "absurd" to expect people who are legally empowered to obtain the drug to get it from an unspecified source for free.
Prosecutors obtained new indictments against the men two days later.:whoa:
A year ago, another Clark County District Court judge allowed an indictment to stand against six people arrested in a police raid of a different pot dispensary.

Over the years, state lawmakers have proposed bills calling for dispensaries, farms and marijuana taxes, but none has been approved.

Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, a former state Democratic Party chairman now running for the state Senate, said last month that he'd like to set up a certification process letting Nevadans obtain medical marijuana from dispensaries in neighboring California and impose an unspecified tax on the pot.

That isn't going to work, CA dispensarys are under enormous threats and closures by...(you know who)

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/...ical-marijuana-case-3831104.php#ixzz25KUDdnti
 
Ark. Conservatives seek to block MM ballot initiative

Arkansas conservative group seeks to block medical pot vote
August 31, 2012|Suzi Parker | Reuters

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - A conservative Arkansas group seeking to prevent the state from becoming the first in the U.S. South to allow medical marijuana filed a lawsuit on Friday to knock a pot-as-medicine proposal off the November election ballot.

The lawsuit filed in the state Supreme Court by the Coalition to Preserve Arkansas Values argues the ballot's title, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act, is misleading and the act itself hard to understand at 8,000 words long.

"By introducing more addictive substances into society, it is a family values issue," said Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council Action Committee of Arkansas, part of the coalition seeking to block the measure.The move illustrates the deep misgivings about medical cannabis in the country's traditionally more conservative South, even as 17 other states mostly in the Northeast and West allow the drug for medical purposes. California voters first took that step in 1996.

The battle over medical pot in Arkansas comes as voters in Washington state, Colorado and Oregon are set to decide in November on whether to legalize recreational use of the drug. Massachusetts will also have a medical pot ballot measure.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care spent all year circulating petitions for the ballot initiative to allow medical marijuana in the state, and last week it reached the state's threshold of over 62,000 valid signatures.

Because of Arkansas' strict procedures for ballot initiatives, it is often difficult for groups to challenge them. (more)

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...for-medical-purposes-marijuana-policy-project

So now what? we have Obama Adm siding with Coalition to Preserve Arkansas Values ?? What happens when Obama is re-elected, and some of these staes legalize recreational use?
Oh that's right -it doesn't matter to Obama, cuz he's already got another 4 more years to kowtow to Big Pharma
 
SmarterthanYou said:
Liberals/Obama supporters are greatly 'disappointed', but will still vote for him since they don't want to be 'single issue voters'.
Click to expand...

Single Issue voting is the only sane way to vote for the most part. Most people have about enough energy/inclination to get knowledgeable about one issue that interests/motivates them. They should be voting on that issue rather than the two others that they know little/nothing about or the three other issues that their friends feel strongly about or they've heard something about.

Pick one issue that really matters to you and you're knowledgeable about and vote with it.
 
Disillusioned said:
Single Issue voting is the only sane way to vote for the most part. Most people have about enough energy/inclination to get knowledgeable about one issue that interests/motivates them. They should be voting on that issue rather than the two others that they know little/nothing about or the three other issues that their friends feel strongly about or they've heard something about.

Pick one issue that really matters to you and you're knowledgeable about and vote with it.
Click to expand...

Seriously? You believe the majority of people are not intelligent enough to educate themselves on the issues? Truly sad.
 
Rana said:
Seriously? You believe the majority of people are not intelligent enough to educate themselves on the issues? Truly sad.
Click to expand...
I don't believe they have enough time/inclination. People have jobs and sometimes even lives. How much time are you really willing to spend researching statistics on teacher job rates in comparison with hours worked, worth of candidates and days off? I don't know nearly enough to be voting on their union rights. So I don't.

People don't have enough time to really get down to knowing all the issues. That's why they elect representatives based on the "stand up guy" model. They pick somebody who they think is going to do the right thing, and forget about it, rather than trying to align everything.

Not saying people are stupid, I'm saying that our government is incredibly complex and our issues are less black and white than either side would like them to be.
 
Ryan: Don't interfere with legalized medical pot

http://news.yahoo.com/ryan-dont-interfere-legalized-medical-pot-025634169--election.html
DENVER (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan says the federal government shouldn't interfere with states that have legalized medical marijuana.

The Wisconsin congressman tells KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that he personally doesn't approve of medical marijuana laws. But he says that states should have the right to choose whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes.

In response to a reporter's question, Ryan said: "It's up to Coloradans to decide."
The interview was taped while Ryan campaigned this week in Colorado Springs and aired Friday.
Colorado is one of 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow medical marijuana.

The Obama administration at first signaled that it wouldn't interfere with state-sanctioned marijuana distribution. But the Justice Department has since angered marijuana activists by shutting down dispensaries in California and Colorado.
 
Well looky here...., the 'cruel uncaring Republicans' come out for compassion, while Obama continues his made up war on the dangers of "big is bad"- one size fits all on medical marijuana dispenasarys.

Looks like Obama is stuck on the Cole memo, While Ryan goes back to Obama's original poicy of the Ogden memo.
here's a quick read -

In 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued what is now commonly referred to as the “Ogden Memo.” In it, Ogden announced that federal prosecutors “should not focus federal resources . . . on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”
Thus, if a state permits individuals to grow their own marijuana for personal medical use, DOJ would not prosecute them. The memo also announced that federal officials should not focus on people who provide marijuana to patients in compliance with state law — prosecuting “those caregivers in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law who provide such individuals with marijuana, is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources.”


Less than two years later, however, DOJ significantly walked back the Ogden Memo. A 2011 directive from new Deputy Attorney General James Cole reiterated that “it is likely not an efficient use of federal resources to focus enforcement efforts on individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses who use marijuana as part of a recommended treatment regimen consistent with applicable state law, or their caregivers,” but it also defined “caregiver” narrowly to exclude “commercial operations cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana.” In the wake of the Cole Memo, several United States Attorneys offices brought federal law to bear against marijuana dispensaries — even dispensaries in full compliance with state lawhttp://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...icy/?mobile=nc
 
Fearmongering on weed and testicular cancer

The team then compared the illegal drug histories of those 163 afflicted men with the lifestyle habits of 292 healthy men of the same age and ethnicity. Inside the data, they saw that men who had used marijuana recreationally were twice as likely to develop mixed-germ-cell tumors, including the deadlier non-seminona tumors. (The 292 unaffected men were "sampled" from the same neighborhoods in which the ill men had lived at the time of their diagnoses, Cortessis said.)

"These tumors usually occur in younger men and carry a somewhat worse prognosis" than other types of testicular cancer, the study reported. Moreover, the USC findings confirmed two previous reports in CANCER of an apparent link between marijuana use and cancer of the testicles, the researchers noted.

Still, the rate of such cancers occurring in men is relatively low: There is a lifetime risk of slightly more than 1 percent, Cortessis said.

"The truth is, the vast majority of men who develop testicular germ-cell tumors survive them. There's still a small proportion that don't. Those guys tend to have non-seminonas, unfortunately," Cortessis said. "But also, non-seminomas require more extensive treatment, including radiation and chemotherapy.

"We're not concerned only with preventing non-seminomas so that the malignancy doesn't harm the man, but we're also concerned about the later health effects for men that may be related to the more-aggressive therapy" (such as chemo), she added.

Advertise | AdChoicesSo, why would weed wield such woes for some cojones in some dudes?

The USC scientists are unsure exactly what internal glitches marijuana may trigger that could cause cancer. But they speculate that the process may begin in the body's endocannabinoid system, which is the cellular network that responds to the active ingredient in marijuana. That same system has been shown to be vital in the formation of sperm. The study was was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

The researchers also invested a few words of their report to speak directly to the young men living in the 17 states where medicinal marijuana is legal, stating: "The findings suggest that the potential cancer-causing effects of marijuana on testicular cells should be considered not only in personal decisions regarding recreational drug use, but also when marijuana and its derivatives are used for therapeutic purposes."

At medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state and California, that stance not surprisingly drew swift retorts.

At the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the proprietors read the USC study on Friday afternoon, then promptly emailed to NBC News a news link to a recent study in Madrid in which cannabis was found to be a cancer fighter.

"The LA study stands in contrast to several recent studies which have found that cannabis actually has cancer fighting properties," said Steve DeAngelo, co-founder of Harborside. "The LA study is reporting a correlation, as opposed to a causal connection between cannabis use and the cancers. It is a well-established scientific principle that correlation does not equal causality."I would also note that the sample size is quite small," DeAngelo added, "and the size of the control group is double that of the cannabis users."

Two states to the north, at Seattle's Northwest Patient Resource Center, chief executive John Davis argued that any person taking therapeutic drugs should know that all of those otherwise beneficial substances carry some health hazards.

"And with a lot of them," Davis said, "the risk is death.

"If you're using (marijuana) medicinally, you should understand the risks and the benefits, just like any other therapy," Davis added. "Marijuana, in general, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances on Earth. Can it have some side effects? Yeah. But compared to pharmaceutical drugs, those side effects are much less
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48969102/ns/health-mens_health/#

"corelation does not equal causality" is the big idea here, as any psychologist can tell you, this is often used (correlation) as some kind of linkage -but without causality -it HAS to be speculative. Basic Psych 101. It's just more fearmongering from special interests
 
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